British History Trivia
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120 free British History trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
56 free British history trivia questions with answers. Two thousand years of British history in fifty-six questions. This quiz runs from Claudius's Roman invasion and Boudica's revolt through Alfred and the Vikings, Hastings and the Domesday Book, Magna Carta, the Black Death, the Wars of the Roses, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the Gunpowder Plot, the Civil War and Cromwell, the Great Fire, the Union of 1707, Trafalgar and Waterloo, Victoria's empire, the suffragettes, Dunkirk and the Blitz, the birth of the NHS, Thatcher, the Falklands, the Good Friday Agreement and Brexit. Easy questions ask what happened in 1066 and how many times Henry VIII married; the hard ones want the poll-tax rate that sparked the Peasants' Revolt, the car park where Richard III turned up and the horse that killed Emily Davison. Written for history buffs, pub-quiz teams, GCSE revisers and anyone who watched too many period dramas. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the events, monarchs and battles involved, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
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Q 01Which Roman emperor launched the successful invasion of Britain in AD 43?
Claudius
Caesar had raided in 55 and 54 BC, but Claudius's invasion began the near four-century occupation. He came over himself briefly, reportedly with elephants.
Q 02Boudica, who led a revolt against Rome around AD 60, was queen of which tribe?
The Iceni
The Iceni. Boudica's Iceni, based in modern Norfolk, burned Colchester, London and St Albans before Suetonius Paulinus crushed the revolt; her chariot statue stands by Westminster Bridge.
Q 03Roughly how long is Hadrian's Wall?
73 miles
73 miles. Hadrian's Wall ran 80 Roman miles, about 73 modern miles, from Wallsend on the Tyne to Bowness-on-Solway; construction began in AD 122.
Q 04In roughly which year did Roman rule in Britain finally end?
AD 410
AD 410. The conventional end date comes from the Rescript of Honorius, in which the emperor reportedly told the British cities to see to their own defence after the legions had been withdrawn.
Q 05The 793 raid marking the start of the Viking Age in Britain hit which Northumbrian monastery?
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne. The 793 sack of Lindisfarne's monastery, on a tidal island off Northumberland, shocked Christian Europe; the monks later fled with St Cuthbert's body, which came to rest in Durham Cathedral.
Q 06At which 878 battle did Alfred the Great decisively defeat the Vikings, leading to the Danelaw?
Edington
Edington. Alfred's victory at Edington in Wiltshire in 878 forced the Viking leader Guthrum to accept baptism, with Alfred as godfather, and to withdraw to East Anglia under the treaty that shaped the Danelaw.
Q 07The Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk was excavated in which year?
1939
1939. Self-taught archaeologist Basil Brown uncovered the ship burial in the summer of 1939 at the invitation of landowner Edith Pretty, weeks before the Second World War began; Pretty gave the finds to the British Museum.
Q 08Which Danish king ruled England, Denmark and Norway in what historians call the North Sea Empire?
Cnut
Cnut. Cnut ruled England from 1016, Denmark from 1018 and Norway from 1028; the tale of him commanding the tide is usually told as a rebuke to flattering courtiers.
Q 09On what date was the Battle of Hastings fought?
14 October 1066
14 October 1066. Harold Godwinson had marched south after beating Harald Hardrada's Norwegians at Stamford Bridge on 25 September, nineteen days earlier; the fighting at Hastings lasted from about 9 am until dusk.
Q 10How is Harold II traditionally said to have died at Hastings?
An arrow to the eye
An arrow to the eye. The tradition rests on a Bayeux Tapestry figure shown clutching an arrow in his face beneath the words 'Harold rex interfectus est', and on chroniclers writing decades later.
Q 11What kind of artwork is the Bayeux Tapestry, which is technically not a tapestry?
An embroidered cloth
An embroidered cloth. The Bayeux Tapestry is embroidery, stitched in wool thread on linen rather than woven, and runs nearly 70 metres through the story of the Norman Conquest.
Q 12William the Conqueror's great survey of England, the Domesday Book, was completed in which year?
1086
1086. Commissioned at Christmas 1085, the Domesday survey was completed in 1086; its nickname came from the sense that its judgments were as final as the Last Judgment.
Q 13Which Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered in his own cathedral in December 1170?
Thomas Becket
Q 21What did workmen find in a box under a Tower of London staircase in 1674?
Two small skeletons
Two small skeletons. Workmen demolishing a staircase by the White Tower found two children's skeletons in 1674; Charles II had them reburied in Westminster Abbey, and whether they are Edward V and his brother has never been proven.
Q 22How many times did Henry VIII marry?
Six
Six. Henry married Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived; only Jane Seymour gave him a legitimate son.
Q 23What title did Henry VIII take under the Acts of Supremacy after his break with Rome?
Supreme Head of the Church of England
Thomas Becket. Four knights killed Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170 after Henry II's outburst against him; his shrine became England's greatest pilgrimage site, the destination in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Q 14King John sealed Magna Carta in June 1215 at which riverside meadow?
Runnymede
Runnymede. John met the barons at Runnymede, a meadow beside the Thames near Windsor, in June 1215; within weeks Pope Innocent III annulled the charter, and only four 1215 copies survive.
Q 15At which 1314 battle did Robert the Bruce defeat Edward II's English army?
Bannockburn
Bannockburn. Bruce's victory near Stirling on 23–24 June 1314 secured his hold on the Scottish throne, though England did not formally recognise Scottish independence until the 1328 Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton.
Q 16The Black Death reached England in June 1348 through which port?
Weymouth
Weymouth. The plague is traditionally said to have landed at Melcombe Regis, now part of Weymouth in Dorset, in June 1348 aboard a ship from Gascony; it went on to kill perhaps half of England's population.
Q 17The third poll tax that triggered the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 was set at what flat rate per person?
12 pence
12 pence. The 1380 poll tax demanded a shilling, 12 pence, from everyone over fifteen, three times the 1377 rate; the revolt ended when Lord Mayor William Walworth stabbed Wat Tyler at Smithfield during a parley with Richard II.
Q 18Which day of the calendar gave its name to the 1415 battle where Henry V's archers routed the French?
St Crispin's Day
St Crispin's Day. Agincourt was fought on 25 October 1415, the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian; Shakespeare's 'band of brothers' speech in Henry V is the St Crispin's Day speech, and longbowmen made up most of Henry's army.
Q 19In the Wars of the Roses, which side was symbolised by the red rose?
House of Lancaster
House of Lancaster. The red rose of Lancaster set against York's white gave the wars their later name; Henry VII, the Lancastrian heir, combined both into the Tudor rose after marrying Elizabeth of York in 1486.
Q 20Richard III, killed at Bosworth in 1485, was found in 2012 buried under what in Leicester?
A car park
A car park. Archaeologists found the skeleton under a Leicester city council car park in September 2012; DNA from Michael Ibsen, a descendant of Richard's sister Anne, confirmed the identification in February 2013.
Supreme Head of the Church of England. The 1534 Act of Supremacy declared Henry 'the only Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England'; the pope had earlier named him Defender of the Faith for attacking Luther.
Q 24At which castle was Mary, Queen of Scots beheaded in 1587?
Fotheringhay
Fotheringhay. Mary was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire on 8 February 1587 after eighteen and a half years as Elizabeth's prisoner; her son James inherited Elizabeth's throne in 1603.
Q 25In which year did the Spanish Armada sail against England?
1588
1588. The Armada sailed in May 1588; fireships scattered it off Calais in August, and the wind drove it around Scotland and Ireland, where many ships were wrecked.
Q 26Where did Elizabeth I deliver her famous speech to the troops in August 1588?
Tilbury
Tilbury. Elizabeth addressed the army camped at Tilbury in Essex on 9 August 1588, declaring she had 'the heart and stomach of a king'; by then the Armada had already been driven off.
Q 27How many barrels of gunpowder was Guy Fawkes guarding when he was found under the House of Lords in 1605?
36
36. Fawkes was found with 36 barrels of gunpowder in a cellar beneath the House of Lords late on 4 November 1605 after the anonymous Monteagle letter tipped off the authorities.
Q 28How many years did Charles I rule without calling a Parliament, in the so-called Personal Rule?
Eleven
Eleven. Charles governed without Parliament from 1629 to 1640, funding the Personal Rule with devices such as Ship Money until war with the Scots forced him to summon one; civil war followed in 1642.
Q 29Charles I was executed in January 1649 outside which London building?
The Banqueting House, Whitehall
The Banqueting House, Whitehall. Charles stepped onto the scaffold from a window of the Banqueting House on 30 January 1649, beneath the Rubens ceiling he had commissioned; he reportedly wore two shirts so as not to shiver.
Q 30What title did Oliver Cromwell hold from December 1653 until his death?
Lord Protector
Lord Protector. Cromwell was installed as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth on 16 December 1653 and held the office until his death in September 1658; after the Restoration his corpse was hanged at Tyburn.